Harry Potter and the Zodiac Brave
by The JP
Summary: OC story, with OC idea somewhat taken from my Zodiac Keeper story. Before their fifth year at Hogwarts, Harry and company meet James Matthews, who never received his Hogwarts letter for reasons unknown. Who is he, and how can he help stop Voldemort? OCxLL


**Okay, so I know people are going to start shooting guns at me for having so many stories going on at once, and none of them finished. Let's just say that writer's block really, **_**REALLY**_** likes paying me very long visits. Seriously, as soon as I write a certain amount of words, writer's block sets in and I can't do anything else. It **_**sucks**_**. So my only route is to start another story, and hope the process of writing it relieves my writer's block.**

**This time around, I'm taking the idea of Samantha's powers in my **_**Zodiac Keeper**_** story, and embodying it in the form of a male OC who never received his Hogwarts letter because… the owl couldn't find him. So, it involves him going to Hogwarts from his fifth year onwards, so he has to deal with Umbitch… sorry, Um**_**bridge**_**. I always like writing stories where Umbridge gets tortured… as you can tell, there will be slight FFXII (Final Fantasy XII/12) crossover here.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or FFXII. Happy? Good!**

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Ah… a nice, long day relaxing in the sun. I don't get enough of these, you know. This time, I'm spending it in England. The last one was in California, the one before that in Tahiti, and prior to that I spent the day in Madagascar. Sometimes, it's nice to be able to travel the world, searching out that one spot where there'll be a perfect day of sunshine.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. The name's James Matthews. If you had to ask me for my nationality, I would reply American, but I really only identify as that because of my accent, since I travel the world on my own. I was orphaned from a young age, four years old. I still remember the one who murdered my parents, and actually, he works for me now. Unwillingly, of course, but he doesn't exactly have much of a choice. But I guess that warrants some explanation in itself.

My parents were killed by none other than the Grim Reaper himself. Then again, that's just the name he gives to common folk to make them fear him. His true name is Zalera, the Death Seraph. He is _horrifying_, and he controls the souls and bodies of the dead as if they were puppets, because for him, that's _exactly_ what they are. The irony? He's _my_ puppet.

I am known as the Zodiac Brave. I don't know where the name came from, but after my parents died, I was sucked into some weird parallel universe for a few years, where I was told of my birthright, what my abilities were, and what actually happened to my parents, with the last part being explained at the end of my six year stay.

From what I can understand, my mother was the Zodiac Brave before me. After I was born, the powers transferred themselves from her body to mine, marking me as the next Brave. My abilities were profound: control over the very elements of nature, the supernatural, and the metaphysical, along with mastery over the thirteen Zodiac Scions. Zalera happened to be one of them. Payback is a bitch sometimes.

Of course, the reason for said payback warrants explanation. From what I understand, every Zodiac Brave accidentally summons one of the thirteen Scions accidentally sometime between the ages of four and five. The Scion called out says absolutely nothing about the Brave's power; instead, it merely serves to show where the Brave's weakness is. Mine is that I fear for the death of those I care for, and that is why Zalera appeared. He came out from a strange, shadowy rune that appeared behind me, and he took my parents' lives. It's a memory I've tried to forget, but it keeps returning, and will haunt me until the day I die.

After I learned everything about my powers in the parallel dimension, I was about seven years old. That was when I started learning the arts of combat.

I immediately excelled in swordplay. I had some of the most powerful weapons to ever exist at my disposal, but immediately I took a liking to Excalibur. Yes, I have it, and it happens to be a two-handed greatsword. Weren't expecting that, were ya?

The other weapon that I instantly excelled in the use of was a bow called Sagittarius. The name was fitting: the symbol for Sagittarius often took the form of a bow, and Shemhazai, the Scion for that sign, used ranged combat herself. I eventually became so proficient in the use of the bow that I could hold an arrow taut and ready to fire for hours at a time, and when I finally let go of the bowstring, I could take the wings off of a fly from five hundred yards. But I still preferred swordplay.

After my six years were up, I was sent to yet _another_ parallel dimension, this time to learn of the most potent of the Brave's powers: transformation. I hold the power to transform into any of the thirteen Scions, and wield their abilities as my own. I could do this anyway by just focusing on a Scion's astrological sign, but the potency was maybe ten percent of what it could be. I never transformed into Zalera though, for obvious reasons. I heavily debated Shemhazai and Ultima, seeing as those two are the opposite gender from myself, but eventually I got used to it and did so when necessary. Now, that's not to say that I enjoy being the opposite gender; in fact, I hate it. However, the power of those two cannot be denied, and sometimes I've had to use it. I get so embarrassed when I change back that it almost seems to not be worth it, though. But eh, that's life.

Once that time was up, I was around the age of eleven, and started traveling the world with my abilities of teleportation. I discovered there to be a very large amount of strange creatures hidden in the world, and so far I've killed my fair share of monstrosities. My favorite beasts to kill are dragons though. A few of them I couldn't actually kill because they receded into alternate dimensions, which annoyed me, but at least I knew where I could find them when they re-appeared.

I only met one foe that I couldn't defeat, and that was when I was fourteen. The foe was a giant dragon by the name of Yiazmat. I didn't know how to fight the thing, and every time I went up against it, the creature defeated me with ease. I didn't know what I was doing wrong… that is, until I stumbled across a weapon in my horde that worked well against it. Once I found its weakness, I bested the beast easily and sent it back to its prison, but it still weighs heavily on my mind, and is my second greatest fear, with losing control over Zalera being the greatest.

And that was my life up until now. Back to the beginning: me relaxing in the sun. Today was the day that changed _everything_. Maybe being in England wasn't the best idea…

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I was lounging in the sun when I heard voices off in the distance, voices that sounded old and weary, but also very wise and knowledgeable.

"Are you sure that this is the boy, Albus? This is the fifth time you've come searching for him, and every time it's been fruitless. How can you be so certain that this is the one?"

"Because, Minerva, I can see his magical signature. This is the boy, without a doubt. How the owl managed to not find him… well, that is a story for another day. Anyways, I suggest we wake young Mr. Matthews here so that we can give him his letter, and explain everything to him."

Neither of them noticed that one of my eyes was ever so slightly creaked open, eyeing them. Nor did they notice the knife clutched in my left hand, ready to strike at a moment's notice. I didn't care that these people were wearing strange clothes that seemed so out of place in this time period that I wanted to laugh; no, all I cared about was who the hell they were and how they knew my name and where to find me.

The two started heading for me, but all they saw was a bright flash of light, and I was gone. They blinked, and the next thing those two felt was the cold steel of my knives against their throats.

"Now, I may look like just your average, everyday kid, but don't underestimate me. One wrong move, and I kill you. Now, what is it that you want to explain to me, and how do you know who I am?" My tone was cold, ice dripping off my words. It took some effort to hold back Mateus, the Scion associated with my own birth sign (Pisces) so that there weren't literal chunks of ice falling out of the air.

My thoughts were cut short when the old man, Albus, pulled a letter out of a pocket somewhere in his robes and handed it to me. I withdrew my knives from their throats, and took the letter anxiously, ripping it open to see the contents.

**Mr. James Matthews**

**Any number of cities, most recently Moscow, Berlin, Saigon, Los Angeles, and London**

**You have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.**

**Should you accept the invitation, you shall join the other fifth year students in their class for your fifth, sixth, and seventh years at Hogwarts. You would have started at age eleven in First Year; however, due to reasons unknown the Hogwarts owls could not locate you to deliver the letter.**

**To catch you up in your studies, three students, who shall meet you assuming you accept the invitation, will tutor you.**

I read this part of the letter, and skimmed over the rest of it, mainly including the supplies list. I wasn't as stunned as the old man obviously expected I would be, because he raised an eyebrow over the fact that I read the letter calmly. Magic was something I could easily believe in, considering I had done feats that could only be explained in such a way various times.

I put the letter away, and turned to the old man.

"Well? Where to?"

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Note to self: however the hell these people do that apparition thing, I don't want to learn how. I'm quite fine with my teleportation, thanks!

Dumbledore and McGonagall (as I'd learned their names were, even though I didn't call either of them Professor) took me to a place called Diagon Alley, which was like a mall for wizards and witches. It didn't take me long to get used to the concept that people could actually use magic. After all, when I read "Witchcraft and Wizardry", the first thing that popped into my head was how I could fire a beam of piercing light from my hand by uttering a single word. I didn't tell them this, though. And I'm definitely not going to show them my alternate (or technically real) appearance.

Yep, you heard right. My usual brown haired, brown eyed, 5'9" appearance isn't what I really look like. In my real appearance, my hair grows quite a bit longer and is held back by a ponytail, except for a section of my bangs that flops down over my left eye. My hair color is silver, except for the section over my left eye; that portion is twelve different colors, each of which represents a Zodiac sign. My eyes also change color to silver, and the Zodiac signs appear in my iris, along with the symbol for the thirteenth Scion, which manifests inside my pupil. The clothes I wear in this form are black and silver, and they appear whenever I change my appearance: black jacket, silver shirt with the Zodiac Brave crest on it in black, black pants and silver-and-black combat boots. My weapons never appear on my form; somehow I can pull them out of thin air, and send them back into thin air also. Yeah, it's nice.

But back to Diagon Alley. We had gone into Gringotts', the wizarding bank, and it so happened that I had a vault inside. I entered my vault, and immediately found a really nice spear resting on a stand. When I took the spear in my hand, it changed shape into a wand, similar to the ones Dumbledore and McGonagall had. I thought about its spear shape, and it turned back into the spear. Then I thought the wand, and it returned to wand form. Dumbledore made a remark about not needing to pay Ollivander (who I gathered was the wand maker) a visit, and then instructed me to grab up some money to buy my books. I filled a pouch or two with gold coins, and headed out.

We'd bought my books, my robes, and were about to enter the apothecary's shop to buy my supplies for Potions when I heard a voice calling out for Dumbledore.

"Headmaster, I did not expect to see you here today… and escorting a young man. Transfer student?" The man in question was the wizarding equivalent of a goth. His robes were completely black, and his hair was long and greasy. His skin had a strange pallor to it, and seemed waxy almost. He caught my gaze, and raised an eyebrow. Something about him seemed… I don't know. Dark? Evil? But beneath that outer shell, there was good in his heart… if anybody could see it.

"No, Severus, he is not a transfer student. In fact, he was supposed to be a student, but the owl never reached him." The man named Severus raised his other eyebrow.

"I will assume that this is the one who couldn't keep his feet in one place for too long before feeling the urge to move again?" I really didn't like this guy already.

"Now now, Severus," Dumbledore said. "He is joining us now, and that is all that matters, along with the fact that you will be tutoring him in Potions to bring him up to the level of a fifth year, for that is the class he will be joining." A brief flicker of shock passed through his eyes before they returned to normal.

"Am I now?" He turned to me, and introduced himself. "I am Professor Severus Snape. However, you are to call me Professor Snape at all times."

I sneered at him, a hint of defiance in my eyes.

"And what were to happen if I called you Sevvie?" His eyes narrowed, and he leered at me, unsure of what course of action to take.

"You would do well to not aggravate me, Mr. Matthews. You will find that I am not the most pleasant of people to those who anger me." I wasn't at all surprised when he knew my name. He'd probably been one of those poor fools that Dumbledore had been sending out to search for me these past few years. I wasn't even worried when he said that he had a short temper. Apparently, Snape expected some form of response other than the one I gave, and gave me one last glare before walking out.

I decided I didn't like the apothecary. I bought the stuff I needed, placed the shrunken bag into my pocket, and walked out. I wondered where I would be staying, and just who these three students were who would be tutoring me…

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Wow… this place is _definitely_ my style.

We were at 12 Grimmauld Place, a house that was magically hidden and only appeared by thinking really hard about a sentence that revealed its true location. When I got inside, the place was dark, spooky, and in my opinion it had a mystical quality about it.

We walked into the parlor, where I was met by a room full of people: a really large number of redheads, a couple of older men, a teenage girl with bushy brown hair, and a raven-haired boy with glasses and a strange lightning-bolt shaped scar on his head. Dumbledore took the pleasure of introducing me as soon as all the eyes in the room fell onto me.

"Everybody, I would like you to meet Mr. James Matthews. Through circumstances that are still being investigated—"

"Yeah right," I muttered under my breath.

"—his Hogwarts letter never arrived, and our attempts to search him out all failed. We only found him today in London. He has already been to Diagon Alley for his supplies, and will require tutoring to catch him up to fifth year level. Hermione, Ron, Harry, if you three would please come here?"

The girl with bushy brown hair, one of the younger redheads, and the boy with raven hair all stood up, and came over to me.

"James, these are Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley, and Harry Potter. They shall be tutoring you to raise your level of knowledge up to that of a fifth year. Now remember you three, even though he comes from a pureblood line, he had no idea of the existence of the wizarding world until today because of his nature as an orphan." I cringed a little at that. Nice way of putting it bluntly, though. "I believe the lessons should start tomorrow. Today, you should get to know everybody, Mr. Matthews. I hope you enjoy your stay."

As soon as Dumbledore walked away from me, I was gripped into a near-bone-shattering embrace from a red-headed woman. When she pulled away from me, I heard two loud pops, and beside me a set of near-identical redheads appeared. Why near identical? One of them had a small cluster of freckles under the left side of his neck. The other didn't.

"Well mate, seems you're going to be spending some time here. I'm Fred, and this is George," one of them said. Strangely enough, Exodus, the Scion associated with Libra, was telling me that this guy was lying about something. I caught on pretty quick.

"Actually," I said, "he's Fred, and you're George. Am I right, or am I right?" The two of them shared a dumbfounded look.

"Blimey!" Fred exclaimed. "How did ya figure it out? We didn't tell you or anything, and I don't think anybody told you!" I shrugged, grinning. They were impressed… and rightly so!

"Well?" the boy named Harry said, coming up to me. "Want us to take you to our room so you can put your stuff away?"

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End file.
